


You Always Leave Me Wanting More

by fy_faen_fishcakes



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Even loves photography, Isak is a first year, M/M, Penetrator Even, Slow Burn, if Isak and Even met in season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 11:29:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15885138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fy_faen_fishcakes/pseuds/fy_faen_fishcakes
Summary: "What are you thinking?""Your smile makes me stupid."Isak does not like boys. Nope. No way. Well, except for the fact that he's half in love with his best friend. But that's just a one-off. And then he meets notorious fuckboy and photography enthusiast Even Bech Næsheim, the 'hottest, coolest guy in all of third year'. And maybe he does like guys. Just a little bit.





	You Always Leave Me Wanting More

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm super stoked to finally write this, I've been wanting to write fanfiction for a while and now I'm finally doing it, yay. This is unbeta'd so apologies for any spelling mistakes. Please leave me a comment with something nice (or not nice haha) or message me/leave an ask on my tumblr, I'd really appreciate it. Constructive criticism is also very much appreciated!
> 
> This fic is inspired by an edit by loseyourmindnb on YouTube, so go check that out because it's actually incredible. The title is from Strawberries and Cigarettes by Troye Sivan, which you should also check out.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

**Monday 7:00**

Isak’s alarm goes off at 7:00, which basically sets the tone for the day. Over the summer he’d usually go to bed in the early hours of the morning and sleep in until midday, and he couldn’t be bothered to sort out his sleep schedule in preparation for going back to school. He’d fallen asleep at around 2:00 last night, but today’s his first day at Nissen, and now he’ll have to do a whole day of school on five hours of sleep. Great. Head fuzzy and knowing he only has himself to blame, he drags himself out of bed and begrudgingly gets ready.

Half an hour later, Jonas messages him to say he’s outside. He fills Lea’s bowl with food and water, shouts up a quick goodbye to his mum, who’ll probably still be in bed when he gets back, grabs his bag (knowing he’s probably forgotten something), and leaves.

Shutting the door behind him, he greets Jonas with a tired “hey”.

Jonas grins. “First day of school, dude. Look lively.”

Isak merely groans in response. “How the fuck can you be smiling right now? It’s practically the middle of the night.” Isak knows exactly why he’s smiling: they’re both going into their first year at Harvtig Nissen school, the school Eva, Jonas’ girlfriend of about three months, is also attending. Now he’ll be able to see her everyday. Yipee.

It’s not that Isak has anything against Eva, he just has something against her when she’s _with Jonas_. For all his pretending, he really isn’t fine with the fact that now, whenever he and Jonas hang out, Eva is there too. And he isn’t fine with the fact that he now has to share the position of Jonas’ favourite person with her. And, most secretly of all, he isn’t fine with the stab of jealousy he feels whenever Jonas holds her hand, or kisses her, or brushes her hair out of her face and tucks it behind her ear. And they only seem to be falling _more_ in love as the weeks go by. Ugh.

Jonas’ voice brings him out of his thoughts. “It’s passed 7:30 Isak, and I’m afraid you’re gonna have to get used to it.”

Sigh. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“C’mon, lighten up. It won’t be that bad.

“Ugh.”

“ _Issy_ ,” Jonas whines. “If you go in with a bad attitude then you definitely won’t enjoy it.”

Isak shoves him lightly. “Shut up. And don’t call me that, you know I hate it.” He secretly loves it.

“I won’t call you Issy if you promise to stop moaning.”

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes, but decides that he’ll at least pretend to be happy, if only for Jonas’ sake.

“Good,” Jonas grins, and goddammit his smile is infectious.

 

**Monday 14:37**

“If you copy my answers, you’re dead.”

Isak blinks at the girl sat next to him. “What?”

She nods to the front of the class where the teacher’s handing out papers. “Where you not listening? There’s a test to see what we know so far. Don’t copy me.”

“Why would I copy you? I’m perfectly capable of doing a paper by myself.”

She shrugs. “Biology’s my subject.”

Isak bristles. “Well it’s also mine.” She shrugs again. Who even is this girl?

He’d managed to float through the day pretty easily so far, but now there’s this. Most classes were just shitty icebreakers, the kind of thing where you had to go around the class and say your name and one interesting thing about yourself. There’s nothing particularly interesting about Isak’s life. He usually goes for ‘I have a dog named Lea’, secretly hating the people who have stories to tell about whatever exotic location they went to over the summer.

He likes that they’re already doing actual work in biology, although it’s the last lesson of the day, so he’s fairly out of it. And now he has to deal with sitting next to some psycho girl with a permanent scowl for the rest of the term. Great.

“I’m Sana,” she offers once the papers have been handed out.

“Isak,” he replies coldly.

 

**Monday 17:08**

“And that was about the weirdest thing that happened to me today.” Isak finishes telling Jonas and Eva about the ‘psycho biology girl’. “So I guess it wasn’t that bad.” As first days go, it was actually pretty good.

“That’s so weird though,” Jonas says after a moment’s contemplation. “You’re really good at biology.”

Isak just shrugs. “Yeah, well she didn’t know that. I guess she’s just paranoid.”

“Maybe she has a crush on you,” Eva chimed from on top of Jonas’ lap.

“I doubt it. Seemed like the opposite actually.”

“Well, sometimes when someone has a crush on someone they show it by being-”

“This isn’t elementary school, Eva!” Isak snaps. Eva raises her eyebrows, but looks more amused than hurt. “Sorry, I- it’s just been a long day”, Isak sighs. _And you’re really not helping_ , he doesn’t add.

Eva just shrugs, and he’s grateful that she doesn’t go on teasing.

 

**Tuesday 12:54**

God Isak hates Norwegian. Science, great. Maths, fine. But he’s staring at the assigned extract of Ibsen’s _A Doll’s House_ and wondering how the hell the world will benefit from him writing a thousand word essay ‘using the extract and the text as whole’ to ‘discuss whether Torvald Helmer can be forgiven for his actions’. He has no opinion on whether Torvald Helmer can be forgiven for his actions, nor does he care to have one. He was supposed to read the play over the summer but managed to find a movie version to watch instead. Which he fell asleep while watching. All he can remember is that he somehow managed to find every single character annoying.

Sighing, he puts the essay he’s barely started in his bag and tells himself he’ll do it tonight, knowing full well that he won’t get round to finishing it until next Monday evening, the night before it’s due.

“Hey.” Eva dumps her bag on the floor next to his and sits on the table, looking down at Isak. “You okay?” she says through a yawn.

“Tired,” he mumbles back. And stressed. His mum won’t get out of bed or really speak to him, and while that's infinitely better than when she’s screaming at him and telling him he’ll go to Hell, it still wears him down.

She nods. “I feel that. I nearly fell asleep in Spanish. Correction: I did fall asleep. The girl sat next to me had to wake me up.” She yawns again.

“Stop yawning, you’re making me yawn,” Isak says, yawning.

She ignores him. “Anything interesting happen since yesterday?”

Isak had spent yesterday evening making dinner for his mum, and watching TV, eventually falling asleep cuddling Lea. When he’d woken up at midnight and moved to his bed, he’d spent about 3 hours lying staring at the ceiling, feeling worse by the minute. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep that didn’t seem to give him back any of the energy he’d lost on Monday, so “not really. You?”

“Ditto,” she replies as Jonas reaches their table.

“Hey,” he kisses Eva and sits down beside Isak.

“Sorry I’m late, there were some guys getting into a fight on the stairs. Sounded like one of them hooked up with the other’s girlfriend or something.”

Isak rolls his eyes. “How can there already be so much drama on the second day back?”

Jonas shrugs, “I guess shit went down over the summer.”

“Ooh! Speaking of drama, apparently people are already getting into bus groups for _Russ_ ,” Eva says,

Jonas scoffs. “Why? We’re only in our first year. _Russ_ is stupid anyway, do you know how much money gets spent- ” Eva cuts him off.

“On food and alcohol when there are people elsewhere in the world who are starving, yes yes, we _know_ Jonas.”

“Surely you agree that it’s a waste?

Isak lets his mind wander while they argue about the importance of the weird tradition, and his eyes drift across the canteen, stopping to land on a boy sat on the opposite side of the room. He has his feet up on the table and _he’s so hot_ but Isak doesn’t know why he thinks this, doesn’t know why his gaze chose to land on this boy rather than the table of girls next to him. All he knows is that he’s mesmerised, but he quickly looks away when the boy looks up and straight into Isak’s eyes, like he knew he was staring at him. He turns back to Jonas and Eva, the brief moment of awkward eye contact soon forgotten.

 

**Thursday 16:14**

The rest of the week is much the same. Isak trudges through life, permanently tired and with a headache that seems to get worse everyday.

“So this guy in my Norwegian, Mahdi, said there’s a party on Friday. We should go.”

“Tomorrow?” Jonas nods and Isak resists the urge to roll his eyes. Barely a week in and Jonas is already getting invited to parties. “Am I even invited?”

“Well it’s not _his_ party, it’s some rich ’97 guy’s, but I’m pretty sure anyone can go.”

“Is Eva going?”

“No.” Isak, surprised, waits for an elaboration.

“Oh?”

“She’s hanging out with some new friends that day. Oh my god, she does not shut up about them!” Isak is about to mention that she can’t have known them for more than four days, and thus can’t have talked about them _that_ much, when Jonas takes a deep breath, signalling – almost comically – that he’s about to launch into a rant. Isak cuts him off.

“Well, at least she has new friends. Even if you don’t like them, that fine. You don’t have to hang out with them. But since Sara and Ingrid, she hasn’t really hung out with anyone other than you, and as cool as that is, it’s probably not, I don’t know, healthy? I mean, you don’t wanna get sick of each other,” he jokes.

Jonas seems to think about this for a while as they walk. Eventually he sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m being kind of selfish.” Then, “damn bro, when did you get so deep?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been writing this essay on _A Doll’s House_ and I’d hate to see you turn into that Torvald guy. Not that Eva would put up with that crap.”

Jonas laughs and nods. “You should be an agony aunt or something.”

“What the fuck!? What’s an agony aunt?”

“You know, one of those people who you write to for advice on like relationships and stuff, and then they answer in a magazine.”

“Sounds like Yahoo Answers.” They both laugh.

“Yeah I guess, I don’t know.”

They walk in silence for a bit, and Isak thinks about how _nice_ this is, the two of them walking back from school together and just talking. They do it everyday, but every so often he’s taken aback by how easy their friendship is, and filled with gratitude that he has Jonas, even if he is pretty much his only friend. He’s never really found the need for any more, much to the concern of his parents and teachers and, occasionally, Jonas himself.

But this contentedness never lasts long, not anymore, because Isak wants _more_. He’d never really realised how he felt until Jonas started dating Eva, and then all of a sudden there was this great, ugly jealousy that was more than just Isak being possessive of his best friend.

It’s Jonas who breaks the silence, silence that feels like it’s slowly growing stale, less easy, and Isak panics that his stupid feelings are gonna ruin what they have. “So, this party tomorrow?”

Isak shrugs. “I guess I’m game,” he says, and is rewarded by a grin from his best friend.           

“Cool, I’ll get Mahdi to send me the address.”

 

**Friday 20:28**

When Friday evening rolls around, Isak is lying in bed in his underwear with a bag of crisps, watching Narcos on his laptop. Basically the furthest thing from being ready to – or even wanting to – get the bus to the other side of town (the posh side of town, he thinks with mild contempt) just to get wasted with Jonas in an apartment full of people he’s never met. He’d rather just go to Jonas’ and get high or roll over and go to sleep, but it’d be shitty of him to bail now.

He hates that he’d say yes to whatever Jonas wanted. He hates Jonas for it. No, he hates himself for it. It’s not like he’s in love with him or anything, obviously. _So why is it that whenever Jonas and Eva are making out unashamedly in the middle of the school yard, Isak can’t help but wish he was in Eva’s place, sat in Jonas’ lap, twisting round to face him, fingers buried in his hair, sighing into his mouth_ – no. He can’t want that. He _doesn’t_. Jonas is his best friend. He just hates being a third wheel, is all.

 

**Jonas**

**20:31**

I’m outside

Fuck, I’ll be out in a sec

 

Isak frantically throws on some black jeans that are on the floor and rummages in his drawer for a clean shirt. A few seconds later he emerges with a white T-shirt that smells passable, grabs his favourite red snapback and his phone (which is regrettably only on thirteen percent) and walks across the hall to his mum’s room. He opens the door a crack.

“I’m going out mama,” he says softly. No reply.

He runs down the stairs and out the door, suddenly feeling horribly trapped in his own house, hoping he isn’t supposed to bring his own alcohol and that there’ll be something to drink when he gets there. God knows he needs it.

 

**Friday 21:09**

It turned out that when Jonas said anyone could go, he’d really meant it. Isak was pretty sure half of Nissen was crammed into this guy’s apartment. (William, Jonas had mentioned he was called. Apparently he lives alone, so can throw parties whenever he wants, which Isak is jealous of).

When they get there, a dark-skinned boy in a blue snapback nods at Jonas, and they fight their way through the crowd to where he’s stood in the corner of the room with a goofy-looking blond kid.

“This is Mahdi!” Jonas yells over the music, before turning and introducing Isak. He fist-bumps him and turns to the blond guy, who waves and introduces himself as Magnus, and then launches into a series of over-enthusiastic ‘this is so cools!’s, followed by various comments on how he’s ‘totally gonna hook up with at least three girls tonight’. Isak isn’t sure what to say to that, but Mahdi just rolls his eyes and gestures to the room full of bodies swaying along to some pop song that Isak’s heard way too many times.

“Go on then,” he says, and they all laugh when Magnus’ face turns red and he flails for something to say, eventually coming up with a pathetic “well… later” that makes Mahdi smirk.

He turns to Jonas and Isak. “What about you guys? Got your eye on anyone?”

“Nah, I have a girlfriend,” Jonas replies, and Isak is annoyed by how casually he says it, almost as if hooking up with someone is an option, and he’s being a saint for deciding not to cheat on Eva. It’s only a slight, almost imperceptible change in his tone, but Isak notices it nonetheless. It’s like he’s trying to fit in with the guys, and it makes Isak uncomfortable. He’s not one to change who he is just to try and get along with someone. Either they can put up with him as he is – grumpy, selfish and irritable – or they can fuck off as far as he’s concerned.

“Oh cool, what’s she called?” Mahdi asks.

“Eva.” And _there’s_ the familiar adoration in his face, the look that normally has Isak rolling his eyes but right now comes as a kind of relief. He hates the idea of losing Jonas to anyone. _Selfish_ , a voice in the back of Isak’s head tells him.

Mahdi turns to Isak and raises his eyebrows in question, and it takes him a second to understand.

“Me? Oh, I’m single,” he says rather lamely.

“So you looking to hook up tonight?” Mahdi asks, and Isak immediately feels uncomfortable. In truth, he’s only kissed two girls before, and hated it both times. The most recent was a couple months ago, when he’d hooked up with Sara, one of Eva’s friends (well, ex-friends), at a party, and she’d tried to give him a blowjob in the bathroom. He remembers his chest tightening and the feeling of repulsion that came with kissing her. He remembers the embarrassment of not being able to get it up, of seeing her kiss down his chest over his t-shirt, and knowing that _no matter what_ , he couldn’t let her see because _this isn’t normal. You’re not normal._ He remembers shoving her out the bathroom with some lame excuse about how they were both drunk and he didn’t want to take advantage, knowing full well they’d only had a couple of beers each. He remembers sitting on the toilet seat, crying into his hands like a fucking baby, wondering _what the fuck is wrong with me?_ as the tightness in his chest slowly relaxed and his breathing went back to normal.

“Umm…” Isak looks round the room, trying to act casually. “There’s not really any hot girls here, so probably not,” he says, shrugging.

“What the fuck?!” Magnus shrieks. And fair enough, it’s an odd thing to say. Isak can see there’s lots of attractive girls at the party. He’s just not interested in making out with any of them. But then, “are you gay?!” and Isak’s pulse stops.

“What?! No!” He’s not gay. He’s not.

_He can’t be._

“I just have standards, is all”, he replies coolly, trying desperately not to look as panicked as he feels.

Magnus scoffs, incredulous. “So you’re saying there’s no hot girls at Nissen?”

“That’s not what I said, I said there’s no hot girls _here_.”

“Yeah but- ”

“What about her?” Mahdi interrupts, pointing at a blonde girl grinding against a guy in a ‘penetrators’ hoodie (which, what the fuck?). “You’re saying you wouldn’t bang her?”

“I mean, sure she’s hot, she’s just not, you know, do-able.”

“Seriously? Look at her?!”

Isak glances at Jonas for help, but he’s staring at the floor, an uncomfortable expression on his face.

Mahdi nods at another girl, with short dark hair. “Okay, her? The one who looks like Natalie Portman.” _Why do they care so much?_ Isak thinks desperately.

“Uh…” He’s panicking. He knows she’s hot, but in an objective way, not in that desperate, lustful way that guys are supposed to think of hot girls in. He knows she’s pretty, but when he imagines hooking up with her, he feels nothing. Nothing. Just like he’d felt nothing all his life. He’d felt nothing when he’d accidently found his friend’s brother’s porn magazine when he was eleven. He’d felt nothing when he’d kissed a girl for the first time at Julian Dahl’s pool party when he was thirteen. He’d felt nothing when Sara had tried to go down on him last summer. And he feels nothing looking at that girl now. But that’s not normal. So “yeah, I guess she’s pretty hot,” he replies.

And when, at Mahdi’s suggestion, he goes and talks to her, he feels nothing. He feels nothing (but a bitter sense of relief) at her shameless flirting, nothing (but a vague repulsion) when he leans so close he can smell the beer on her breath, nothing (but a superficial feeling of wrongness) when she clumsily pulls his mouth to hers, and nothing ( _nothing_ ) when she slips her tongue into his mouth.

Until he locks eyes with a boy across the room, and all of the air is knocked out of his lungs.

.

The boy is kissing a blonde girl on the other side of the room, but he’s staring straight at Isak, and he’s _breath-taking_ , even with half of his face obscured by the girl’s hair. The curve of his jaw, his hair, styled into a long, swoopy quiff, his lips. _God_ , his lips. Isak stares right back at this boy who somehow looks familiar, and it’s like the boy is kissing him, and his stomach drops and his pulse quickens and he feels light headed.

The boy grabs the girl’s face and pulls her closer, still maintaining eye contact it with Isak, and fuck, it feels like the gesture’s for him. He can almost feel his fingers on his cheeks, and the ghost of a touch makes him crave the real thing.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows this is wrong, that they’ve been staring for too long, that someone will notice, but it’s not until the girl he’s kissing, Emma, pulls back that he starts freaking out. _What the hell was that? That guy’s probably gonna go and tell all his friends about the weird boy who stared at him while he was making out with someone else._

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Isak thought the guy was the one who looked at him first, but what if Isak had just happened to catch his eye, and he’d carried on looking at Isak because he was wondering why he was being so creepy. He looks over to where the boy had been standing, but now he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

He tells Emma he’s going to get another drink and goes in search of the boy, not knowing what he’s gonna say, but knowing has to do something, to apologise or try to justify himself in some way.

.

Isak can feel himself growing more and more worked up as he searches the apartment. Maybe he left, he thinks. Maybe he was so weirded out that he took off with his girlfriend, or whoever it was he was kissing. He opens the door to what he suspects is the bathroom, figuring he’ll splash some water on his face or something to try and stop himself from spiralling (he’d seen people in movies do it), but quickly leaves when he sees that he’s actually walked into a bedroom, where a couple is rolling around making out on the bed.

“Sorry!” he yells, before slamming the door and collapsing against the wall. And there he is, stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall like a fucking movie star and smirking down at Isak, who realises with a start that he’s the boy he was looing at the other day in the canteen.

“Bathroom’s next door,” he says, nodding towards the door next to the one Isak just entered, and okay, fuck, he’s even more beautiful up close. He doesn’t look angry, Isak notes, or creeped out.

“Uh, do I know you?” He decides to play dumb, but the boy only smiles and raises his eyebrows like he knows exactly what Isak’s doing.

“I’m Even,” he replies smoothly, extending his hand for Isak to shake, which he does. _Who the hell shakes hands at a party?_ Something in the back of Isak’s mind registers that he’s wearing the same ‘penetrators’ hoodie that he’s seen a few people wearing, and he idly wonders what it’s for.

It takes a few awkward moments – moments Isak spends trying not to stare too much at Even – before he realises Even’s waiting for a reply. “Oh, uh, I’m Isak,” he stutters, cursing himself for being so awkward.

“Hello Isak. Are you new? I haven’t seen you before.”

Isak blushes despite himself. “Uh, yeah I’m a first year, so I started on Monday.” The first years got to start a week after everybody else.

“Oh right,” Even nods. “Do you start every sentence with ‘uh’?”

“Uh, no I- ” Isak starts before realising his mistake and blushing deeper. He figures he must be nearly purple by now. Even laughs, and _wow_ that does funny things to Isak’s insides. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. It’s cute.” Oh  god is this guy _flirting_ with him?

_What do I say what do I say what do I say?_

“What class are you in?” _What the fuck?!_

“3STB. Wanna smoke?.”

“Yeah, cool.”

.

Isak lets Even lead him through the apartment to what looks like a guest bedroom. There’s a tiny balcony that they both squeeze onto, and Even pulls out a joint.

He lights it up and takes two drags, breathing out a thin stream of smoke before handing it to Isak.

“What’s your hoodie? I saw some other people wearing it,” Isak asks as he takes the joint.

Even seems surprised he doesn’t know. “We’re The Penetrators. That’s our bus name. It’s William’s apartment, he’s our bus boss.”

“Oh right. _Russ_.”

Even laughs. “You got something against _Russ_?”

“Nah, it’s just not really my thing,” he says, passing the joint back to Even, savouring the way their fingers brush. _Get a grip_.

“Me either, but my friends wanted to do it, so here I am.” He gestures to his hoodie. “Besides, it does sound kinda fun. Drinking all the time and hooking up with people?”

_People, he said. ‘People’, not ‘girls’._

_Stop it. It doesn’t mean anything._

Even leans over the railing of the balcony and looks out over the city. It’s dark by now but there’s light everywhere, from cars and houses and big glass buildings that are probably just office blocks but somehow seem too fragile and beautiful to be stuffed full of paperwork and coffee machines and people in suits everyday.

Even sighs. “This would be such a beautiful shot. I wish I had my camera. When you see a city like this, all lit up, cars rushing around, it’s easy to forget that it’s not actually alive.”

“What do mean?”

“Like, all the cars and the buildings and the people and everything, when it comes together it’s like the city is this living, breathing creature, and it’s completely breath-taking.”

 _Breath-taking_. The first word Isak though when he saw Even.

“Couldn’t you just take the picture on your phone?” Isak asks.

Even tosses the finished joint over the balcony. “Wouldn’t do it justice,” he says, and Isak doesn’t really understand how a phone camera can be different to any other camera, but he really doesn’t care because Even has turned to face him again and his eyes are _so blue_.

They look at each other and Isak feels the silence stretch on, vaguely thinks that he should say something, but then Jonas appears out of nowhere and interrupts what Isak is sure is considered ‘a moment’.

“Isak, Eva showed up with her friends and she’s completely wasted, like she can barely stand. We need to go man.” Isak reluctantly nods ‘bye’ at Even and lets himself be dragged away by his best friend.

.

**Unknown Number**

**23:47**

Hey

Nice talking to you tonight :p

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, plz comment and validate me. Next chapter should be up in like a week? Probably? We'll see. (There'll be about 5 chapters)
> 
> Eva xox


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